This is my 2000 Dodge Dakota R/T. I bought it on December 12th, 2003. It is one of the 117 Reg. Cab Bright White Dakota R/Ts built for that year. It's a daily driver, and nothing all that special yet. I guess you could say its quick, but I wouldn't call it fast. I don't consider anything in the mid 14s fast. I just do stuff to it because I enjoy it I have done everything myself from the engine, to the interior, to the exterior, to the maintenance work and mounting the tires on it, with the exception of painting the tonneau, mirrors, hood, and roll pan. I would love to do more, but can't afford to. College-- what are you going to do? Some day it might be something special and in the low to mid 11s, when I can actually afford to do what I want to it.

Please feel free to give it an honest rating and/or leave me a comment if you feel like it. I do appreciate it.

Overview and Exterior

Exterior Mods:
*An AAR functional fiberglass cowl induction hood
*Street Scene Cal-vu Sport mirrors
*Sir Michael's steel roll pan.
*Urban Industries flush mount fiberglass tonneau cover
*Rhino Linings spray-on bedliner
*Sylvania Silverstar headlights and Silverstar bulbs in the clear signal housings.
*IPCW smoked LED third brake light
*Painted the black door and tailgate handles, as well as the black antenna mount, white to match. They should have came that way from the factory.
*Is window tint considered a mod??? :-)

Interior, Audio, and Misc.:
*Suede headliner
*Alpine CDA-9857 headunit with iPod control
*JBL BP1200.1 amplifier
*2 Power Acoustik FUBR-10 subwoofers
*Rockford Fosgate components in the rear and Infinity components up front
*DEI Viper alarm. I also added a window mod to it, that allows you to roll the windows down by the remote and automatically rolls the windows up every time the alarm is set. Then I installed an electric tailgate lock, so it will lock whenever the doors lock.

Engine/Performance
*EBC slotted rotors and Green Stuff SUV/Truck Pads
*Additional lowering with DJM suspension
It's 5.9 engine only has minor modifications, but slowly working at it:
*Mopar M-1 intake manifold
*Edelbrock ceramic coated headers
*Mopar Performance PCM
*Mopar Valve Covers poweder coated hemi orange
*K&N open element air intake
*Borla muffler, now dumped before the axle
*MSD super conductor 8.5 plug wires
*Autolite 3923 plugs (work much better in these motors)
*180 degree thermostat
*throttle body with twin 52 mm bores

I plan on doing more stuff to the engine to get some more performance out of it but money is always tight. Some of the stuff I would like to do are:
*1.7 Harland Sharp roller rockers
*electric exhaust cut-out system
*ditch the clutch fan for an electric
*And should I ever get the money, I would like to bore and stroke the 360 to a 408 or maybe even a 426.
*I also want to swap the 3.92s out for some 4.56s, but Im going to wait for the LSD to go out before I bother with that.

updated:
NEW WHEELS
They are 20" BOSS motorsports (American Eagle Wheel Corp.) 307's. The rear tires (275/40/20) are only a 1/4" taller than the stock tire height and the fronts are about a 1/4" shorter than the stock tire height.

Nice shots of the hood and color matched side mirrors.

The one on the right shows the new lower stance and color matched handles and antenna mount.


Good shots of the Sir Michael's Roll Pan and flush mount tonneau cover. I peeled the tailgate "DODGE" and "5.9 R/T" decals. I think it looks cleaner this way.





I also have a tow hitch that hides behind my roll pan. It is accessed by flipping the license plate out of the way.

Got rid of the stock beer keg of an intake manifold and replaced it with this Mopar M-1 manifold which is powdercoated silver. Big improvement over stock. It pulls hard all the way to redline instead of laying down after 3500 rpm like the stock one did.



Another shot of the manifold and old style K&N air filter. It just has a slight offset so it clears the top of the firewall. No its not carb'd or a tbi setup, its still a multiport injection setup. (People ask me that a lot)

New throttle body with 52 mm bores. You can see the stock one on the left and the new ported one on the right. It made a hell of a difference when paired with the M-1. I got it used as it appears, and the paint isn't perfect on it, but it looks good and was made well. So if I get time I might repaint the top to clean it up some.

Borla muffler, dumped before the rear axle. I had it moved forward more to fit the turn down on which basically required cutting everything off after the cat and starting over with just the muffler. Its a bit dirty and discolored but not bad at all considering its age. The carbon buildup on the rear end is from running it without a turn down for a short period. Not good to have that hot exhaust blowing on the rear end for a long term so i had to move the muffler quickly. I have since painted that driveshaft black since it was the only thing rusted under there.

Here is a sound clip of the exhaust. Turn up the volume some because the camera is a basic point and shoot digital still camera and its bad on video and sound. Also I put it pretty far away so you dont get that wind sound from the exhaust blowing towards it.

EBC slotted rotors and the Green Stuff 7000 series pads. Pretty dirty after thousands of miles of use, but they get the job done.

New headlights

New tail lights. They are kind of the reverse of the stock tail lights.

These have super bright LEDs in the top part and a regular bulb in the bottom where the reverse light used to be. I was originally going to swap the connectors around and make the small red area the new brake light, but the connectors are very different and i cant even rewire them to work either. So i made the upper part the running light and brake light and added a brake light with the lower part. I also put very small white led strips hidden in the space between the tailgate and roll pan so people know when I'm backing up. I didn't like them at first and thought they were a little ricey, but now I think they go good with the white.
The running lights

Then the brake lights

Then the reverse indicators.

I also got a new smoked LED third brake light from IPCW.
Before:

After: As you can see I got the model without cargo lights. I don't use the cargo light because of the tonneau cover so I figure more leds for the brake light would be better.

The latest edition. These have been around for years but I just now decided to put one on.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls-Which is where my truck got the name Echinsu Ocha

Page 2 Interior and Audio
Page 3 What it used to look like, and other stuff